NOAH'S ARK

". . . Creatures all,/ Large and small,/Good and mean,/Foul and clean,/Fierce and tame,/In they came,/Pair by pair,/ Gross and fair. . . ." Perhaps so as not to break the rhythm, perhaps in order not to distract from the pore-over-able watercolors, Spier confines all 60 three-syllable lines of this neat little 17th-century Dutch rhyme ("The Flood," by Jacobus Revius) to an opening page, then settles down to tell the familiar story in pictures. There is quiet diversion aplenty in Spier's throwaway detail--Noah admitting two bees and brushing away swarms of others; the branch that the dove brings back being fed to the cow; a whole gangplank of rabbits disembarking though only two began the voyage--and it's seen from a variety of viewing points: a scene of marching underbellies complete with smaller hitchhikers and fellow passengers, a sad rear view of those left behind, a wide one of chores being done on the busy floating barn. Without revising or even enlarging on the old story, Spier fills it in, delightfully.